Office 2003 all applications locked

[John]

Last week I sent an email from Outlook with an attachment that was too large
and it bounced back undeliverable (although that might be a coincidence).
Ever since then though I can receive incoming mail but New/Reply/Forward
buttons are greyed out and I can't send anything. Since then I've realised
that the problem is affecting all my Office applications. Can't open new
Excel/Word files or edit existing ones - copy/paste menu buttons etc all
greyed out. There are no error messages and everything seems to open
normally - it's just all locked up. The scary thing is I've reinstalled
Office 2003 and run the Detect and Repair tool and clicked on Activate
Product - but no change. I also reinstalled BT Broadband for good measure -
but nothing makes any difference! Any thoughts out there?

 

[DL]

If in Word you access Help> Activate Product what msg does it return?

 

[John]

Hi DL - no message - doesn't appear to do anything!

 

[DL]

You havent installed any trial version?
Help>About Office Word does state the correct version?
Inserting Office cd, does offer the option to repair? & following this does
nothing?

 

[John]

Not a trial version - been using no problem for a couple of years.
Reinstalls no problem. Goes through Help/Detect & Repair process and message
confirms successful. Then nothing!

 

[DL]

Boot your system into safe mode and recheck
What version does Word Help state?

 

[garfield-n-odie [MVP]]

See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=823527 "Licensing Activation
fails in Office 2003".

 

[John]

I'm gutted - thought that had to be it - but doesn't work. The file
opa11.dat simply reappears. I was thinking of uninstalling MS Office and
then installing it. Don't know whether this would be different from
reinstalling, which I've already tried?